Our Backyard Diamond Mine
by Two Hours' Traffic
Summary: Chaos - noun, 1. a state of utter confusion or disorder; 2. a state of affairs in which it appears that Emmett has taught Nessie to play hide-and-seek a little too well.


It was a frenzied night at the Cullen house. Carlisle had been working overtime for a week, trying to deal with the patients from a fire at a near-by factory. When he wasn't at the hospital, he was reading, thinking, worrying, wishing that he could be there. Esme was stressed out because Carlisle was stressed out. Emmett was being irritating; Rosalie was yelling at him. Jasper was trying to calm everyone down; Alice was getting sick of his intervening. Edward was trying to help Carlisle. Bella was on the phone to Charlie. And in the midst of it all, a small child was wandering around past her bedtime, searching for attention.

"Daddy?"

"Yes, baby? What is it?"

"Can I have some juice?"

"Of course you can. You don't need to ask."

"Daddy?"

"Yes?"

"Can you get me some juice?"

"Ness, I'm really busy at the moment, love. I said that I'd do this for Grandpa Carlisle, and it's got to be finished tonight. Could you go and ask your mom?"

"OK."

She darted down the stairs to where her mother was on the phone and pulled on her skirt.

"Mama, I want some juice."

"Renesmee, just give me a minute, sweetheart."

"Mo-om!"

"Renesmee, please, I'm busy. Can you go and ask your dad?"

"Mama! He's busy. He said to ask you!"

"Did he now?" Bella looked frustrated. "Well, I'm busy too. I've got to help Grandpa Charlie with this. Can you please ask someone else?"

Renesmee pouted, but went off in search of aid.

"Emmett Cullen! Do you have to be such a pain all the time? There was absolutely no need to cut up those shoes of Alice's!"

"Rose, baby, chill a bit. She knew that I was going to do it, anyway. We had a bet going the other night and _she_ lost. Why are you getting pissed with _me_?"

There was a knock at the door, and a curly head on top of a pink nightdress poked around the door frame.

"Aunty Rose, can you get me some juice?"

"Uh... alright, honey."

Two minutes later, Nessie was sitting contentedly on the couch with her juice, as chaos raged around her.

"Rosalie! Chill out! I've apologised already!"

"No, Dad! The trash is collected on _Tuesday_ - I realise that! – No, I can't come over!"

"Carlisle, I can't find anything about what to do if flesh burns become putrid. Haven't you ever dealt with this before?"

"Alice, sweetheart, please just relax a bit."

"No, I don't remember where we put the Christmas lights! Why do you even need to know that now? It's July! – You want to do _what_ with them?"

"Emmett, I can't believe you! I really can't believe you!"

"Edward, I can't remember what you need to apply first. Can you try the Encyclopaedia?"

"Please stop telling me to relax. He cut up my flowered Converse. I realise we had a bet, but I could have sworn I'd win. How was I supposed to know that she'd change her mind at the last minute and go with green?"

"Dad, I don't remember where the adaptor plug is. – Why do you have a hairdryer from Singapore? – Why do you _need_ a hairdryer?"

"Jasper, please don't run inside. If you break one more of my vases -"

There was a smash.

"Jasper Whitlock Cullen, you come back here this instant!"

Renesmee caught a glimpse of her uncle streaming out the door, and his wife flew down the stairs.

"Where the hell did he go?" she muttered to herself. She looked into the living room, and saw her niece on the couch. Renesmee was sitting with her hand wound into her hair, drinking absentmindedly from the bottle.

"Nessie, sweetheart, what are you doing awake? It's 9:50!"

"No-one said it was bedtime."

Renesmee's eyes were wide and innocent. Alice smothered a smile as she walked over to her niece and sat her on her hip. The toddler burrowed her head into her aunt's neck and sighed contentedly.

"I think it's time for bed now," Alice murmured. She felt her niece nod. She carried Renesmee to Edward's old room, and lay her down on the bed, where the toddler wrapped herself in the bedclothes, a thumb in her mouth.

Renesmee came downstairs the next morning to the aftermath of the previous evening's chaos. Rosalie was beginning to forgive Emmett; Emmett was still holding a grudge – although it was fading fast. Alice was lying on the couch with her head on Jasper's feet. Bella was filling in a crossword puzzle, still frustrated at her father's incompetence. Esme and Edward were talking quietly.

"Good morning!" Renesmee chirped.

A chorus of "good morning"s came from those assembled.

"Morning, sweetheart," Edward smiled as he kissed his daughter. "I'm sorry about last night. I was stressed out."

"It's OK, Daddy."

She went to sit next to Emmett, who wrapped an arm around her.

"How are you going, kiddo?"

"Pretty good. Can I have Coco Pops for breakfast?"

"Ask your mother! I don't know. I'd say yes, but -"

Bella broke in. "I guess so, beautiful. Just have fruit later, and one of us can take you hunting tomorrow."

As Renesmee clambered her way onto a stool and into the cupboard, she could have sworn she heard her mother snarl at her uncle. But maybe that was just the wind.

A bowl of cereal in her hand, she made her way over to the table without spilling too much milk on the floor. She gave it a quick glance before looking away. Alice noticed and got up to clean it.

"What are we doing today?" Renesmee asked with a mouthful of cereal.

"Ness, don't talk with your mouth full," Edward said quickly.

Rosalie was the first to answer. "Well, baby, Grandma Esme and Alice and your mom and I are going to a museum in Seattle, and then we're going shopping. And no husbands or kids are allowed. I'm sorry, baby," she added, seeing Renesmee's lip move into her signature pout which generally assured that she got her own way, "but it means that you get to spend time with your uncles and Grandpa today!"

"Not so much on the uncle front!" Emmett said. "Jazz and I have got a _rendez-vous_ with a little something I like to call Guitar Hero. And I think I know who's going down."

Jasper sat up on the couch, fixing his brother with a determined stare. "Oh, you think that's how it is? Bring it on, man. Bring. It. On."

"Actually," Edward spoke up before his brothers started a full-on wrestling match in the living room, "Carlisle and I were planning on going to the movies today. We've both been meaning to get to that new Tom Cruise one, and it closes tomorrow. But if that means Jasper and Emmett have to look after Ness, we can always change our plans. We'll probably get it on DVD anyway."

Esme looked from her eldest sons, who were growling maniacally in their best attempts to intimidate each other, to Edward, who was sitting calmly at the table, picking bits of cereal out of his daughter's hair. "I think Edward deserves a break. Surely you two can handle her for a few hours?"

"I guess so," Emmett muttered. "She'll be fine with us. You can all just ignore our plans, which were made _days_ ago. We're not going to get another opportunity, either, because Alice won't get off the stupid Wii Fit thing, and Rosalie won't let me do anything that's not going to help her with that twenty thousand piece jigsaw puzzle. Just screw our arrangements. We'll do it. And I'm sure she'll have more fun than she'd have with Edward, anyway."

Jasper was nodding along to what his brother was saying.

Edward turned to them both and fixed them with his best Death Glare. "If we come home and there is one thing wrong with her... If she has lost one hair, or has one bruise, I know who to go to. And trust me when I say that I'll do what I can to make your life hell."

"Language!" Bella muttered, not looking up from her crossword and ignoring the dirty looks that Edward was throwing her.

"Bella, love, this is Renesmee I'm talking about. Do you really want to leave her with these... madmen?"

In a split second, Jasper was hissing in Edward's face. "I'll ask you to remember, Edward Cullen, that I'm perfectly capable of handling a child. I've had decades more experience than you have. I've seen things that you can't imagine. I've killed more people than you could dream of. I've -"

Edward didn't appear too fazed. "Anything happens to my daughter, you'll be sorry, Whitlock."

Rosalie fixed Jasper with a lethal stare. "Really charming, Jazz. But if you scare Nessie, I'll have to contemplate killing you myself." They both looked over to where Renesmee was glancing nervously across the table as she ate her cereal.

Jasper immediately dropped his intimidating façade. "Ness, you're not scared of me, are you?"

She dropped her eyes. Jasper sighed heavily: "Oh, Nessie... I'm not scary. I promise. I'll never do anything to hurt you. You know that, right?"

She met his gaze seriously. "I'm not scared for me, Uncle J. If you wanted to kill me, it wouldn't be very easy. And I'm sure that my daddy would kill you if he heard you thinking about doing that. But I'm scared for my Grandpa Charlie. I don't want you to kill _him_."

Rosalie turned to Jasper with that same violent glare. "You see that, Jasper? That's really lovely. Our niece wants to know if you're going to kill her grandfather. It's hard enough for her to have to put up with all of our quirks, but now she's got to worry about whether her loved ones will make it through the day? Honestly."

"Jesus, Rosalie," he muttered. "You're not my mother."

"True, but I think of us as _twins_. Does that give me the right to comment?"

Esme, who was following this conversation closely, had had enough. "Right, well, I don't think we need to be discussing this right now. Jasper and Emmett are babysitting Ness. We're leaving in half an hour."

Renesmee stood in the doorway of her family's house, waving solemnly at the people piling into the two cars. It wasn't so much that she didn't want to be spending time with Jasper and Emmett – it was more that everyone else looked so excited to be doing things without her.

"Bye, sweetheart," Bella called to her, "Be good for your uncles."

"Love you, Ness!" Alice sang.

Her grandfather blew her a kiss through the window of the Volvo before it drove away and the driveway was empty.

Nessie looked up at her uncles with big eyes. "So, what are we going to do? Can we do a puzzle? Or draw?"

"Let's do a puzzle, honey. But then I'm going to have to ask you to go upstairs and draw. Jasper and I need to quickly play this game – before Aunt Alice gets home and takes over the Wii again. It'll take just a minute."

With the puzzle out of the way, Renesmee headed upstairs with promises of drawings of the family.

And 'just a minute' turned to an hour as Guitar Hero's 'battle mode' filled the minds of her uncles. And when they finally made their way upstairs, Jasper victorious, Renesmee was nowhere to be found.

Jasper and Emmett searched through the top floor of the house, calling her name. They looked in Alice's closet and behind Edward's couch – the two places that Nessie had always hidden playing hide-and-seek.

"How could she have done this to us? She's eight months old!"

"Well, you're the one that taught her how to hide from people looking for her!"

Emmett turned to his brother, trying to think the situation through. "OK, so we've got to be logical about this."

"What's logical? We're searching for an eight-month old vampire!"

"No... we've just got to weigh up the pros and cons. Will Edward be more angry if we call him to say she's missing, or if we don't – and she's still missing when he gets home?"

Jasper sank down onto the floor, head in his hands. "We're so screwed."

They kept on looking, calling, looking, calling for a good twenty minutes. There was absolutely no sign of her.

Jasper's phone vibrated in his pocket. He pulled it out to find a text from Alice: _found the most incredible swimsuit. will show you when we get home. love you, A xx; PS. if you don't find her in ten minutes, i'm telling rose. _

Jasper looked up at Emmett in anguish. "Your wife is going to kill us."

"If Edward or Bella don't kill us first."

They both sat in silence, contemplating what would be done to them if they didn't relocate their wayward niece. Then Emmett's phone rang. He looked at the number, and swore under his breath. "Hi, Edward. How's it going?"

"Good. How's it at home?"

"Just great. Jazz and I are... um..."

Jasper began mouthing obscenities at Emmett. _You idiot! We're watching Ness!_

Emmett slapped a hand over his mouth, eyes wide open. Edward seemed not to notice the sharp intake of breath on the other end of the line. He just kept on talking. "I just got a call from Alice – she said to call you, but to tell you that 'she didn't tell. What's going on? How's Nessie?"

"She's just... dandy. She's good."

"Can I talk to her?"

Emmett looked over at Jasper, who was making massive 'no' hand gestures. _Make something up,_ he mouthed.

"Actually, Edward, she's... upstairs, in the bathroom. Having a bath. Don't want her to drop the phone and get electrocuted."

"You're not watching her in the bath? What if she drowns?"

"She can't drown. She's not human. And Jasper's checking on her."

"I'd be happier if one of you was in there with her. We'll be home in just over an hour, OK?"

"See you then. Say hi to Carlisle for me."

"Bye."

Emmett closed his cell, then turned to Jasper with a look of despair on his face. "What the hell are we going to do?"

"We're trying logic again." Jasper began to pace. "Alright. You're a toddler, Emmett. Your parents aren't home. You're being babysat by your pushover, fun-loving uncles – who aren't watching you. Where are you?"

"Um... where I'm not allowed to be? Oh, God... she's not in the attic, is she?"

But there was no sign of their niece in that room.

Jasper sighed. "We are toast. Edward is going to dismember us when they get home."

"And Rosalie'll hand him the lighter to burn the pieces. Oh my God..."

Emmett wandered over to stare in agony out of the window. He searched for inspiration in the trees, the immaculate lawn and the flowerbeds. Then something caught his eye by the stream running through the backyard.

"I don't believe it," he muttered before running at full-speed out of the attic and down the stairs, Jasper on his heels. They pelted out to the stream, where a little girl crouched on her heels, drawing patterns in the mud. She didn't know what hit her when she suddenly found herself six feet in the air, being scolded by her aggravated uncle.

Jasper didn't know whether to be infuriated or relieved. "Don't you ever do that to us, ever again, Renesmee! Do you understand me? We were worried sick."

"Seriously, Ness. We thought something terrible had happened to you. We were scared we'd never see you again."

Nessie's bottom lip began to quiver as tears built in her eyes. "I'm sorry..." she whimpered. "I didn't want to scare you. But I was bored in my room, and the sun was making the rocks in the stream sparkle. And I wanted to search the water for diamonds."

Jasper took a deep breath to stop himself from smiling. "Next time, Miss Cullen, you tell us before you go searching for diamonds. OK?"

She nodded.

"Now, everyone is going to be home soon. I'm sure they'd be more impressed with you if you weren't covered in mud. Go and have a bath, and then we'll get you into some clean clothes."

Renesmee walked between Emmett and Jasper, holding one of each of their hands in hers, as they made their way back to the house. Once inside, she had a bubble bath, filled with pink bubbles, and Emmett dressed her in some clean jeans and a hoodie. Her dirty clothes went straight into the washing machine, in the vain hope that Alice wouldn't see the grass stains and mud defiling their fabric.

When Edward and Carlisle got home, Renesmee ran into Edward's arms and hugged him tightly. "Daddy! I searched for diamonds in the stream today! And I had a pink bubble bath, and I drew a picture of me with Grandma Esme."

Edward smiled at Jasper and Emmett over his daughter's curls. "Thank you," he mouthed at them, and they smiled at him.

When Bella and the other Cullen women got home an hour later, Renesmee was still bubbling about her day with her uncles. The uncles in question had to cringe every time she mentioned what she'd done that day, but not once did she say running away, or getting into trouble.

Bedtime soon came, and Nessie requested to be tucked in by Emmett. She rested her head on his shoulder as he carried her to the cottage and into her pink room. The double bed was covered by a bedspread adorned by roses, and he had to pull back the matching mosquito net to get her onto her bed.

"Sleep well, kid. I love you."

She smiled sleepily.

Emmett brushed her hair back from her forehead, and then made his way to the door.

"Uncle Emm?"

"Yes, baby girl?"

"Please don't tell Mommy and Daddy about how I was bad today."

"I won't, honey. It's our secret."

- end -


End file.
